No Filters.
Not for pity – to show that this process is not as easy as everyone says, and that support is not a luxury.
Bella wrote this on day three after an emergency C-section, and she warns you herself: maximally frank. The shaking, the pain that makes even crying hurt, the panic of a newborn lying on the bed of a mother who cannot sit up to reach her. She published it with photos – no filters, no ponies, no picture-perfect happy women.
The moment that stays with me is the paid night nursery. One night of help, so her body can knit itself back together – and she cries over accepting it, because the myth says a good mother suffers through. Coming Alive says what her tears couldn't yet: we cannot give from a self we have abandoned, and the steady warmth of someone actually home is worth more to a child than the frantic care of someone running on empty. Recovering is not abandoning. Allowing help is not failing. It's the opposite of both.
She asks for one thing only: that we stop pretending this is easy. Read it, and if someone you love is standing where she stood – be the support, not the audience.
🌸 Out in the open.
Today's post will be maximally frank. I had heard a lot about birth, about hormones, baby blues and depression. But what I went through – am going through – for me it's been an absolute fucking mess.
We originally planned to give birth naturally, but in the end it turned into an emergency C-section. The operation itself is bearable – it's the state afterward… For at least 3 hours I lay there shaking like an epileptic, my teeth chattering so hard I thought I'd bite off my tongue. We gave birth at 16:51, I was moved to the post-op ward around 19:00, the shaking stopped around 00:30, I could feel my legs at about 23:30. The whole night as if in delirium, on IVs, antibiotics and so on.
3 times a day they inject painkillers that make me cry – but crying hurts too. Injections into the stomach every morning.
Today is day three, and in the morning they took out the catheter and brought the baby, laid her on the bed to breastfeed for the first time. For the record, I can neither sit up nor stand. The baby is lying on the bed… I'm panicking. Then they handed me a bottle – I can't lift it, I can't sit up by myself, I call the nurses again. Somehow they took her and put her in her crib. Thank God a friend came by and helped me.
I got up somehow; walking hurts like hell, I can't even bend down to kiss my daughter. I can't breathe her in unless I pick her up. I changed her diaper for the first time and thought I'd collapse from the pain. I held out. She gives me strength.
Starting today the doctors don't take the baby anymore – she stays with you 24/7. And that stuns me even more. Goddamn it, I've had surgery! They cut open my STOMACH! They didn't remove a mole – they CUT OPEN MY STOMACH! 7 LAYERS! How am I supposed to get up all night alone to feed, wash, soothe, change her?
And here they offer a paid option: they can take the little one for the night. And what do you think? I'm sobbing that I'm a bad mother – that instead of suffering through the pain, I'm giving my child away for one more night so I can recover and give my daughter a healthy mom!
I cry every night… I want to go home, to my husband, to the cat. I want to be my daughter's mom, not suffer from pain. Every evening the thoughts and emotions come flooding in.
And I'm writing this not to get pity or sympathy, but simply to show that this process is not as easy as everyone says. That being pregnant, giving birth, being a mom is hard. And a woman needs support – especially from her partner.
If anyone ever asks me “when's the second one?” again –
my answer will be very harsh. We didn't want and don't want a second child. And a second C-section is something I'm especially not ready for.
All the photos were taken from the day of the operation until today. No filters, no ponies, no happy women.
Thank you for reading.
If her words reached somewhere mine don't – good. That's what this blog is for. Take what fits and leave the rest.
– Jan